YMMV / The Flash (2023)

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• Audience-Alienating Premise: From the moment the film was announced, audience interest was lukewarm due to several factors which compounded as time passed, so that it largely couldn't shake off the negativity surrounding it and wound up being one of DC's most expensive flops:
  • For DC fans, once it was confirmed that it was not simply going to be a Flash solo film but rather a very loose adaptation of Flashpoint^note Which had already been adapted twice by that point featuring the Ben Affleck^note In what was advertised in his final time in the role, itself bittersweet due to him being burnt out from the part after the behind-the-scenes troubles of Justice League (2017) and his solo film being retooled into The Batman (2022) as a result and Michael Keaton iterations of Batman and a new take on Supergirl, it was seen as little more than a means to revamp the struggling DCEU instead of letting Flash stand on his own merits. This is because Flashpoint notoriously led to DC's surprise line-wide reboot, The New 52 universe, and it was well-publicized that the movie would do the same for the DCEU.
  • When the film finally did come out, it was well-publicized long before its release that James Gunn was already resetting the DCEU for a new franchise, the "DCU", on a scale beyond even the previous DCEU revamp plans, beginning with dropping most, if not all DCEU stuff from continuity and recasting Superman and Lois Lane, so while Gunn and others claimed the film would be how the change happens, it was seen as a dead end narratively for the DCEU. And it turned out that the film didn't really set up the DCU in any case, leading to more bad word of mouth from those who went to see it for that.
• Badass Decay: Nam'ek and Faora in the original 2013 were a credible threat to Superman, whereas in this timeline they are instead demoted to mid-level minions, who Batman can briefly knock out with a bomb and the Flashes can defeat with moderate difficulty, respectively.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Barry putting a baby in a microwave and then forgetting about it until the "ding" reminds him of it (the microwave wasn't on and the baby was safe). The controversy around Ezra Miller may contribute or cause it to cross the line thrice.
• Cry for the Devil: In spite of the damage he's causing and his petulant insanity, Dark Flash is still easy to pity. He was originally Alternate Barry Allen, who was forced to become a superhero and had to prepare for an alien invasion within a matter of days. Going from having an idealized home life to fighting in a war, plus witnessing his allies dying over and over coupled with the injuries sustained from his efforts drove him mad. Refusing to accept that he can't fix everything, Dark Flash spent decades trying to perfect his timeline. As dangerous as he became, it can't be denied that most of us would probably crack just as badly under similar circumstances.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: Due to development problems that changed the ending, what should have been a happy resolution instead runs into this for some viewers.
  • The Flash reverses his initial change to the timeline and restores everything (mostly) to normal. In doing so, however, he erases both Michael Keaton's Batman and Sasha Calle's Supergirl from existence. Although the ending is supposed to show that Barry has accepted that there are "just some problems he can't solve", in practice, it plays out more that he abandons Batman and Supergirl to die after spending the whole movie getting to know them. Keaton's Batman and Calle's Supergirl were originally supposed to carry over onto the "main" DCEU, but as it is, it makes the ending feel a lot more cynical than was probably intended.
  • If the ending is interpreted as Barry ending up in yet another timeline that just happens to be close to his original one, rather than returning to his original universe (but altered), that means his father in the original universe still probably didn't get off trial and now Barry is missing from that universe as well, meaning the original Henry Allen will never hear from his son again.
• Fandom Rivalry: Between that of the movie and of the quasi-concurrent TV series The Flash (2014) and the wider Arrowverse family of shows that it's part of.
  • The movie and the DCEU Barry Allen in general have to contend with the impact of the Arrowverse version of the same character played by Grant Gustin, whose show began shortly before Miller's casting was announced (for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), lasted for 9 seasons, and ended less than a month before the movie was released. Many fans of the TV show and the Arrowverse were disappointed that the movie didn't acknowledge it (and the wider Arrowverse scheme of the multiverse) at all, despite Miller's Barry having already appeared in the Arrowverse Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019) TV event, meeting Gustin's Barry face to face which the movie ultimately didn't reciprocate. Both Barrys are also based on the modern Geoff Johns-penned version of Barry who lost his parents as a child due to his mom's murder and his dad being wrongly imprisoned for it, so the movie and the show hit a lot of the same beats while differing in execution.
  • As a Flash multiverse story, the movie gets compared to various ways the Arrowverse has done it and particularly the Crisis TV event, as both use older DC live-action adaptations to fill out the multiverse, but their characters' roles in the plot and the way they're presented also differ in execution. Crisis relied on getting DC actors to reprise their roles with their characters having aged accordingly, and this is also true for Keaton returning as Batman in the movie. But the movie drew heat for recreating other DC actors in CGI, either for deaging or because they're deceased. Ezra Miller is in fact the only actor who appears in both.^note For instance, Crisis and the movie both reference Keaton's Batman movies, but Keaton himself only appears in the movie while the supporting character Knox cameos in Crisis instead. Similarly, Burt Ward cameos as an older Robin in Crisis while the movie recreates his costar Adam West as Batman. And Crisis has Brandon Routh from Superman Returns return, again representing Christopher Reeve's version but older, while the movie recreates Reeve himself.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • Three words: Nicolas Cage Superman. Go nuts writing stories about his adventures.
  • George Clooney Batman was someone no one was expecting, so stories about what they have gotten into also are ripe for writing.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content:
  • There are fans who prefer one of the two original endings such as either the one with Batman from the Burtonverse and Supergirl resurfacing alive at the courthouse with their deaths undone as a result of Barry seemingly resetting the timeline or the one with the two along with Superman and Wonder Woman at the courthouse over the final ending. A glimpse of either is a Missing Trailer Scene, namely a flash of Supergirl at the courthouse, as evidenced by the background.
  • In addition, Affleck's Batman had an apparently post-credits scene that was cut, wearing a different black and silver Batsuit and unmasked. Coupled with Keaton's Batman taking his place in the DCEU going forward, this probably meant that Affleck's Batman was somehow lost in the multiverse as a Sequel Hook, which intrigued some fans. Unlike the above, this was revealed through a behind-the-scenes feature with the home release. At least the black and silver Batsuit is compared favorably to the blue and grey one he wears in the film proper.
• The Firefly Effect: The imminent reboot of the DC film universe following James Gunn's takeover of the studio was one of the many reasons that made it hard for audiences to get invested in the film. While there was pre-release speculation that the multiversal shenanigans might play a part in said reboot and provide an in-universe justification for it, this ultimately proved to not be the case.
• Genius Bonus: Only people from Spanish-speaking Latin America (where the song is ubiquitous), or fans of salsa music are likely to understand the significance and foreshadowing of Nora and Barry singing "Pedro Navaja".
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: The post credits scene where Arthur and Barry are out drinking could be viewed as such if one assumes they were out celebrating Arthur becoming a father.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
  • This is the latest in a long line of Flash adaptations to focus on Barry Allen, the second Flash, rather than Jay Garrick (Barry's predecessor, and the original Flash), or Wally West (Barry's successor). In particular, it's based on the New 52 version of Barry Allen, just like every version of Barry since the New 52 launched has been, is adapting Flashpoint just like every version has, and it even follows what the Arrowverse shows did and made him Younger and Hipper and took elements of Wally West and Bart Allen's characters, too. While some argue this makes sense as Barry was the Flash for the longest tenure and was the one who co-founded the Justice League, and first explored the Multiverse, he was popularly seen as a Flat Character, and the New 52 version in particular is quite controversial for his Unintentionally Unsympathetic and Creator's Pet tendencies, even by fans of Barry at large. For a lot of DC fans, they'd rather just see another story, and especially for fans of Wally West given it was his incarnation of the Flash that has been at the centre of every other big Flash story (especially the ones that aren't nearly as controversial as Flashpoint), and has a character arc that many consider one of the best in comics. Similarly, the fact there are two Barry Allens in the film has caused this reaction from some comic fans, who see it as a missed opportunity to have utilised Wally West or Jay Garrick with the latter only getting a brief cameo alongside George Reeves’ Superman on his Earth during the multiverse scene in the climax. Considering that one of the common arguments against including the Flash Family is the claim of Uniqueness Decay when there are multiple speedsters, one can't help but note that at least the other Flashes tend to have unique skills and powers that make them distinct from Barry whereas this is literally two of the same character.
  • The multiverse focus itself is another case of this, as it's not the only film or comic book adaptation to focus on it in the last few years (it should have come out much earlier when the concept still felt "fresh" cinematically speaking, but the COVID-19 Pandemic and its long and troubled production had it come out long after it was the case, and the 2020 DC Fandome announcement that Michael Keaton's Batman would be in the film had the effect of the Marvel Cinematic Universe producers fast-tracking Spider-Man: No Way Home to do the same thing with the eponymous hero's previous incarnations over a year in advance). DC's Arrowverse made frequent use of it (in particular, Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019), which even featured the DCEU Flash in short cameo appearance) and made a point of establishing every DC live action property is just a part of it, while the Marvel Cinematic Universe has turned it into their newest Myth Arc for Phase 4, never mind other Marvel properties too, such as Sony's Spider-Man: Spider-Verse, and that's without talking about how it's been utilized in the comics and other media recently of both companies. By the time the film finally came out, it was merely the latest to utilize the multiverse as part of its story, with much of the film's criticism being focused on how it failed to do anything new with the concept (especially as the film was released the same month as Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, which was praised for using the multiverse concept well, with many critics unfavourably comparing the two) and the cameos of past movies was seen as a cynical exploitation of viewer nostalgia and ultimately a waste of the concept. While Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019) has more fanservice around older DC properties which doesn't really affect the plot compared to the movie (due to copying its namesake comic and showing many alternate worlds getting destroyed), it at least integrated more interactions between select characters.^spoilersCoincidentally, this happens to include a few Earths overlapping between the two, including Earth-66, Earth-89, and Earth-96.
  • Speaking of Across the Spider-Verse, those who dislike its concept of "Canon Events" also criticize this movie for essentially the same thing, called "Inevitable Intersections" between timelines, due to in practice being "the Writer on Board says the story must go this way" more than anything, such that the changed timeline and its Batman and Supergirl are inevitably beyond saving. Moreover, in Across, the "Canon Events" theory is presented by the antagonist and repeatedly hinted to be incomplete if not outright wrong, while the hero and those on his side reject it altogether.
    • It also doesn't help that in Spider-Verse 'Canon Events' were a metaphor for common tropes across Spider-Man stories that were part of a larger meta-narrative about what defines the character of Spider-Man. While 'Inevitable Intersections' are just used to prevent audiences from going "Why couldn't they just go back in time and change that?".
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • The Flash features not one, but two Batmen, one of them being played by Michael Keaton. Even many people who aren't fans of Ezra Miller's Flash got excited by the sound of that. This only intensified for some fans when Ben Affleck confirmed this would be his final appearance as Batman, with some of his fans now wanting to see it due to it being Ben's swan song in the role. This piqued further with the confirmation that not two, but four Batmen appear in the movie, including the late Adam West and even a newly filmed scene of George Clooney's iterations making appearances.
  • The marketing for the film placed a lot of emphasis on the supporting appearances by Keaton's Batman and Sasha Callé's Supergirl, to the point that some trailers and posters featured them prominently while not even showing Flash's face. Many snarked or speculated that this was due to Warner Bros. not having faith in either the Flash franchise, the controversial character of Barry Allen (both this version and in general) or trying desperately to hide the now-infamous Ezra Miller, whose long list of very public run-ins with the police and allegations of violent abuse and grooming led to them taking no part in promotion of the movie. Alternatively, the emphasis on time travel and multiverse stuff was taken as WB wanting badly to introduce such concepts before James Gunn's Continuity Reboot and as such included mention of them heavily in the marketing.
  • The movie revisiting the events of Man of Steel, with a new take on Supergirl in Superman's place, as shown in the second trailer which also reveals the returning General Zod, have some interested.
  • After James Gunn confirmed that the film will be used to "reset everything" ahead of his planned reboot of the franchise, some fans expressed an interest in watching the movie just to see how it sets up the new DC Universe.
  • When the director of the movie revealed publicly that one of the movie's major surprises was a cameo from Nicolas Cage portraying his version of Superman in live-action for the first time, it piqued the curiosity of 90s kids and cinephiles everywhere who had grown up hearing stories of the ill-fated Tim Burton production Superman Lives starring Cage, which for one reason or another never came to fruition.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "The Flash will guest-star in his own movie." ^note Due to the heavy publicity that is Michael Keaton's Batman returning, plus Ben Affleck's Batman, plus Sasha Calle's Supergirl etc...
  • "Starring Tig Notaro as The Flash" ^note After Ezra Miller's growing list of criminal activities undermined whatever goodwill The Flash had, comparisons were made to Army of the Dead suffering the same issue with Chris D'Elia, who was replaced post-production with Tig Notaro.
  • All is good in Flash land.^note When producer Barbara Muschietti was asked about the state of The Flash after the Batgirl movie got cancelled, she responded with the quote "All is good in Flash land", which immediately became mocked amongst fans given the many controversies the film has gotten surrounding its Troubled Production and especially Ezra Miller's on- and off-set actions. The quote would quickly become used by fans and critics as an Ironic Echo to any bad news surrounding the film and/or Ezra Miller.
  • "It's Flashin' Time" / I loved the part where he said "It's Flashin' Time" and flashed all over the boys. ^note A combination of "It's Morbin' Time" and a nod to Ezra Miller's criminal activities.
  • Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action, some strong language and partial nudity.^note Some fans poked a bit of fun at the movie's MPAA rating for how it eerily reflected Ezra Miller's criminal activity. The fact that the movie confirmed that the nudity rating is due to Ezra Miller, or more specifically, young Barry's clothes catching on fire and being in his birthday suit in public as a result and the fact that all of it is played for laughs, makes it more wince-inducing.
  • “I got an advanced screening of The Flash, and while I don’t usually care for superhero movies, this one was unique.” ^note This is in reference to the amount of tweets praising the film from high profile users, and the unusually similar wording many use.
  • The Flash microwaving a baby^ExplanationShortly after the film's theatrical premiere, audiences took note of a clip where the Flash rescues a CGI baby by catching it in an unplugged microwave oven before pulling it out and hugging it. An edit that reverses the clip to make it look like the Flash is putting the baby in the microwave quickly went viral online, becoming a popular subject for jokes and further edits playing up its It Makes Sense in Context nature, with many jokingly tying it to Ezra Miller's legal issues (usually by claiming that they improvised the scene). The memes riffing on the clip became so popular so quickly that many people genuinely didn't know it was edited.
  • "Everything is distorted in terms of light and textures" ^note After many people began criticizing the quality of the film's VFX, the film's director, Andy Muschietti, claimed that they were an artistic choice to reflect the world from The Flash's perspective. This statement has since received a vast amount of mockery for being perceived as a really weak excuse for poor visual effects.
  • Keaton Batman crashing his Batwing right into Zod's spaceship (killing himself in the process) was mocked to death by the internet before the film's release (via leaked clip) for various reasons, ranging from how stupid the scene is taken out of context, to the fact that the Bruce Wayne from the beloved Tim Burton movies was ballsy enough to perform a (useless) Heroic Sacrifice like that in the first place.
  • "Banished to the Schumacher/Clooney-Verse." ^note The Movie ends with Barry apparently setting the timeline back to normal. However, when he meets with Bruce Wayne, Bruce is now being played by George Clooney rather than Ben Affleck. This is obviously meant to be a gag & a cheeky nod to the infamous Joel Schumacher directed Batman & Robin, which Clooney starred in the titular role. However, fans have joked that in actuality Barry ended up in the universe of that widely-reviled film rather than back to the DCEU. Some of those fans, particularly those who don't like Ezra Miller and/or this Flash movie, also joked that it's a fitting punishment for Miller's Flash.
  • "Yeah... I'm Man."^note The shot of Keaton Batman first revealing himself in the Batsuit became an exploitable image◊ from the notoriously crazy r/ArkhamBatman subreddit, for their Running Gag of removing Batman's pointy ears and referring to him just as "Man". This devolved into other manipulations, such as "Man" with three ears being called "Forkman", given hair and called "Woman", "Biblically Accurate Man", putting the pointy ears back and calling him "Man with Ears", and going on to remove the ears from every other incarnation of Batman.
• Memetic Psychopath: Numerous jokes about Barry Allen himself being an unhinged lunatic popped up even before the film's release due to the controversies surrounding Ezra Miller. These jokes would only become more frequent once the infamous gif of Barry microwaving a baby made waves.
• Misblamed: More than a few of the film's critics blame James Gunn for the quality of The Flash. This is despite the fact that the movie was produced under the leadership of Walter Hamada and Jeff Johns at a time when Warner Media was still owned by AT&T. James Gunn only became head of DC Studios after Warner Media was brought out by the Discovery network under David Zaslav. By this time, The Flash film was more or less complete and the only thing he impacted was the final few minutes where the Close-Enough Timeline Barry created saw George Clooney's Bruce Wayne replacing Ben Affleck's, as opposed to the original ending where Michael Keaton's Bruce Wayne and Supergirl become integrated into the main universe.
• Money-Making Shot: The perfectly symmetrical shot of the two Flashes preparing to sprint in different directions, using each other's heels as a starting block.
• Moral Event Horizon: It turns out the Zod of the Flashpoint timeline crossed it long before he invades Earth after it's revealed that he dissected Kal-El for the Codex. What makes this worse is that Kal wasn't even hosting the Codex in this timeline, meaning that Zod murdered a baby for nothing.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne. In what turned out to be his final sequence as Bruce, many praised his poignant scene with Barry discussing how instead of dwelling on past tragedies (framed through the ramifications of "fixing" them with time travel), it's better to accept life's hardships and move forward. Fans, and Affleck himself, felt he nailed the character at that moment.
  • All the multiverse or alternate timeline cameos (alternate Supermen and Batmen, and an alternate Flash and Supergirl). And Wonder Woman and Aquaman in the main universe or timeline. The main Superman briefly appears in both contexts, though he's The Faceless in the main universe akin to SHAZAM! (2019), and within the glimpses of the multiverse his newly resurrected appearance from both versions of Justice League is recreated with or filtered through CGI.
  • George Clooney's Bruce Wayne showing up at the end of the film, mainly because no one ever saw his iteration of the character returning after the disastrous performance of Batman & Robin.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: A year before the movie was released, lead actor Ezra Miller was involved in several high-profile legal scandals that led many fans to refuse to attend the film in theaters due to Miller's involvement. This was made worse when DC, who didn't cancel this movie despite the controversy surrounding its lead, would go on to controversially cancel the Batgirl movie being worked on at the same for a tax write-off despite the fact it was mostly finished and was in test-screening.
• Salvaged Story: Barry and Iris are established as being acquainted as early as their college years, running into each other some years before this film began before becoming an official couple. This not only confirms that The Flash follows Zack Snyder's Justice League (as Iris never appeared in the theatrical cut), but their Held Gaze is given more context.
• Spiritual Successor: This film has some similar plot points to What If…? S1E4 "What If… Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?".
  • Both involve Stable Time Loops, that only exist due to a meta-twist setting up a chain of events that wouldn't exist in the main universe's timeline. The key differences here being that Loop exists due to Barry's actions, rather than a twist of fate.
  • Both stories involve Time Travel as a means to fix things, only for the protagonist and/or villain to realize that it is futile.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • The VFX in any scene involving slow motion or the chrono-bowl don't look natural. Muschietti tried to justify this by stating that the Speed Force distorts the Flash's perspective so everything looks off, but Justice League (2017) and Zack Snyder's Justice League both did the exact same thing and looked far more realistic despite being made 6 years before (and the former having had its own share of rushed VFX), so that justification fell flat on arrival.
  • And this justification falls further when many of the other big action scenes, like the Gotham Crisis and the battle with Zod and his forces also look unfinished and as fake as the Speed Force and chrono-bowl sequences.
  • The CGI recreations of George Reeves, Christopher Reeve, Helen Slater, and Nicolas Cage all look incredibly plastic and fake. Adam West only avoids this due to the camera not directly focusing on him. Even then, if you look close enough, you will notice that he's missing his ears, a strange mistake that robs him of one of Batman's most iconic attributes.
• Tainted by the Preview:
  • Fans of The Flash, and those suffering from Batman Fatigue, are rather annoyed that most of the marketing of the film hinges on nostalgia for the Keaton Batman, having the impression that Warner Bros. doesn't have faith in the Flash (or Ezra Miller) to carry a whole film.
  • There's also a segment of fans dreading that the first solo Flash movie is going to be adapting Flashpoint instead of properly setting up the hero's own set of characters and settings first. It doesn't help that Albert Desmond never becomes Dr. Alchemy at any point or that no other member of the Flash's rogues gallery makes an appearance.
  • Related to the above, the reveal that the main (and, it turns out, only villain) of a Flash movie was going to be Zod of all people, rather than an actual villain from Flash's own rogue gallery (or someone he had some personal connection with) was poorly received, reinforcing the fear that Flash was going to be a secondary character in his own movie, and the overreliance on nostalgia. Making things worse is the fact that Zod is an enemy beyond Flash's caliber, and in fact the two never actually interact in the movie proper. The last nail in the coffin was the presence of Kara Zor-El instead of Clark Kent, meaning that a movie with a lot on its plate already would have had to build the conflict between her and Zod anew.
  • Among comic fans who dislike Barry Allen or at least tired of his overexposure, compared to the others are dreading that the first feature of the Flash is going to use him (and especially a controversial version of him, too). A number of fans would prefer to see a Flash film led by Wally West, his nephew, successor, and Breakout Character, particularly since Wally's stories in the comics often featured the extended Flash Family. It being subsequently revealed that the film will feature two Barrys has intensified this, as it comes off as a ridiculous way of avoiding just using the other Flashes.
• Take That, Scrappy!: The younger Barry exhibits all of the quirky traits that were prevalent in both versions of Justice League, which was criticized, but cranked up to 11. His loud and goofy nature earns him a lot of injuries before getting himself killed. The more mature Barry also chews him out for never taking anything seriously.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • Among DCEU fans, a number of Snyder fans have taken issue with Barry's suit changes, preferring the bulky armored look Snyder previously gave him. Spawning more than a few memes mocking both Barry I and II for their suits being "cheap imitators". Additionally, both the erasure of the Justice League and the downgrading of General Zod from Tragic Monster to Living Prop felt like a huge disservice.
  • The film was not particularly well-received from fans of the Flash comics, a lot of which stemmed from this. Putting aside the fact Ezra Miller was considered highly miscast for Barry Allen back when they were first cast in 2014 for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, as well as Barry being changed from a (middle-aged) serious and well-respected hero into a (young) goofy, quirky rookie in both versions of Justice League, but the film omits a number of important aspects of the Flash franchise (namely, The Flash Family and the Rogues) in favor of pushing Batman and Supergirl while having Zod as the villain (and his characterization was far less complex than it was in Man of Steel). This goes further with the fact the film adapts the controversial Flashpoint storyline, but then omits the details from that which audiences liked, namely Thomas Wayne's Batman (and the prospect of having Jeffrey Dean Morgan as him once), while also reducing the Flashpoint timeline's Crapsack World elements that was the entire reason why Barry has to let his mom's death stick (never mind that, because of other changes made, the film has a great number of Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole issues as a result). Replacing Eobard Thawne with a villainous Barry Allen in terms of the villainous speedster, and a random, nameless, non-powered mugger in the case of Nora Allen's killer is a particular sticking point.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Michael Keaton's Batman first shows up in the film's second act and doesn't get nearly enough focus to justify his inclusion in this film (over a more practical choice like Jeffrey Dean Morgan's Thomas Wayne, as shown in the Flashpoint comic on which the film is based). The only acknowledgement of his past adventures is the bag of laughs from the Joker's death scene. The Batmobile likewise is shown off but never used, being little more than meaningless fanservice.
  • Supergirl (played by Sasha Calle) shows up even later than Batman, and is scarcely in the final product, only appearing for a handful of scenes, most of which shows her indisposed (weakened by the cell she was kept in by the Siberian guards) or repeatedly being killed by Zod and having her blood harvested. The most useful thing she does in the film is help Barry I regain his powers by flying him up into a thunderstorm, and she functionally takes a backseat in the climax of the film for the battle between Barry I/Barry II/Dark Flash. Unused sequences involving her character (which were apparently much more violent in nature, suggesting she had more to do during the battle scenes) and two unused endings (where she appeared during the Alternate Continuity established at the end of the film, alongside Keaton's Bruce Wayne and in another version, Henry Cavill's Superman and Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman as well) were ultimately scrapped prior to the final cut.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The Multiverse is an interesting concept that is ultimately little more than a series of cameos from long-discontinued adaptations. They also never see any of them interacting with the heroes. Overall, it never fully explores the idea of the multiverse properly and feels like an attempt to play on fans' nostalgia.
  • While an adaptation of Flashpoint on a surface level, the film never actually utilizes any of the elements from that story that people were most likely to find interesting, including different people in the same roles (barring Supergirl) or a world war threatening to annihilate the planet. Instead, it is used as set dressing for a different take on the same conflict that was already used in Man of Steel.
• Uncertain Audience:
  • The movie was marketed and billed towards modern superhero movie fans, but it also repeatedly tries to play towards nostalgia of previous DC films. Considering how old some of these cameos and call backs were, said nostalgia bypassed anyone born after the mid 1990s. It overall leads to an uneven film that can't decide if it wants to appeal to modern or older fans, which ultimately turned off both demographics from the film.
  • The film also ran afoul of this due to the DCEU's overall mixed reception that deeply divided audiences. Audiences that enjoyed the DCEU understandably had little desire to watch a film whose purpose was to erase said universe to pave the ground for an eventual reboot of the DC cinematic universe. Likewise, audiences that didn't enjoy the DCEU had even lesser desire to revisit a cinematic universe that they never enjoyed in the first place. This left the Flash with little to no appeal for both fans and detractors of the DCEU.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Both iterations of Batman being confirmed to appear in the film came as a surprise to fans. Michael Keaton's return was surprising due to it being thirty years since he last played the character, with said character being from a different continuity and Ben Affleck's return was surprising due to his publicized retirement from the role, to the point his departure forced a potential solo film for his character to be completely reconfigured into The Batman (2022), though he eventually wound up participating in brief additional photography for Zack Snyder's Justice League prior to The Flash. In addition, there's another Batman present beyond Affleck and Keaton: Adam West, once again lamenting that sometimes you just can't get rid of a bomb.
  • The film being the DCEU debut of Supergirl took many by surprise, as she hadn't even been rumored to appear in the film prior to the announcement of Sasha Calle's casting. If anything, fans had long speculated that she'd be introduced in a solo film or a hypothetical Man of Steel sequel (though events from 2018 onward had made the latter prospect unlikely).
  • General Zod and Faora also return from Man of Steel, despite that the former died and the latter was sent to the Phantom Zone in that film (and that Zod's body was later turned into Doomsday). However, this could be justified since the film is about The Multiverse and Alternate Timelines, thus the Zod and the Faora seen in this movie are Alternate Selves from a timeline that Barry Allen accidentally created after going to and changing the past.
  • After the highly publicized departure of Henry Cavill from The Flash after his brief cameo in Black Adam (2022), fans were taken aback when the director revealed there would be a Superman in it after all: Nicolas Cage's Superman from the unmade Superman Lives! On top of that, Cavill's Superman technically appears anyway, just not through actual new footage (unlike Keaton, Affleck, etc.) - along with Christopher Reeve's Superman from his movie series and even more unexpectedly, George Reeves's Superman from his TV series.
  • Zig-zagged since he's a Flash, and thus not unexpected to a degree for Flash/multiverse stuff, but a version of the Golden Age Flash Jay Garrick presented with no explanation is still a relatively deep cut, and even more unexpected is that he's inserted into the world of George Reeves's Superman who was the only superbeing in his original show. Various outlets also erroneously reported Jay's actor to be Teddy Sears doing a Role Reprise of sorts from the Arrowverse Flash TV show, which would be both expected due to being a Flash and unexpected for being the sole representation of that show and the wider Arrowverse (instead of its Barry Grant Gustin, the 90s TV Barry John Wesley Shipp who also plays Gustin-Barry's dad Henry, etc). But it wasn't Teddy Sears but rather one of the film crew, editor Jason Ballantine, in an uncredited role.
  • The ending gives us a cameo from George Clooney's Bruce Wayne, who has apparently replaced the DCEU Bruce in the Close-Enough Timeline.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley:
  • While scenes in the Time Bowl depicting past moments in moments as CGI recreations arguably get a pass as a stylistic choice (which was later confirmed by Muschietti), certain other appearances of alternate universe characters like Christopher Reeve's Superman, Helen Slater's Supergirl, and Nicolas Cage as Superman from the unproduced Superman Lives all look like obvious CGI models, even in their own realities.
  • Flash himself is frequently CGI even outside of the Speed Force scenes and to say it looks off would be an understatement. You can tell whenever Past!Barry is either Ezra themself, or a double with a CGI head of Miller on top.
  • The film's clunky CGI is best exemplified by the computer-generated babies Barry saves, which look closer to the baby from Tin Toy than any recognizable human infant. The nurse falling with them also wavers in and out from the actual actress poorly composited into the scene to an equally jarring CGI double.
• The Woobie:
  • The film opens up with mainline Barry getting little respect from the rest of the Justice League, being treated as little more than a glorified janitor who has to clean up dangerous situations due to no one else being around to stop it. What's worse, his most recent attempt to exonerate his father failed. It's all downhill from there.
  • After having to suffer with the destruction of her homeworld, Kara gets captured and confined to a pitch-black prison where the lack of sunlight would eventually weaken her to the point she could barely stand. After being rescued and regaining her faith in humanity, she confronts Zod over his plans to terraform Earth only to learn that his forces had killed her baby cousin Kal-El. Broken and enraged, she tries to kill Zod in revenge- but fails and dies in every possible outcome no matter how much Barry tries to prevent it. Plus on a meta-level she was originally supposed to survive the movie and possibly coexist happily with her now-adult cousin, if not for Executive Meddling. Suffice to say, she needs several hugs.
• WTH, Costuming Department?:
  • The new Flash costume is considered an improvement over the previous one from both versions of Justice League, however, the cowl doesn't look like it was fitted for Ezra Miller's head, with one shot in the teaser showing it slightly tilted so that it looks like it's about to get in Barry's eyes. When the suit was better seen on-stand, many decried it further for the fake muscle padding that causes it to look almost like a naked alien's skin and overall appearing too bulky looking.
  • When Keaton's Batsuit was finally revealed to the public, the reception wasn't quite as enthusiastic as it could have been. The most glaring criticisms were that his cowl still had the inflexible neck and gave him a utility belt that was the same shade of black as the rest of his suit instead of the previous yellow one. The film puts a Lampshade Hanging on the classic suit design later, as Barry II (who takes an old Batsuit given to him by Bruce and repaints it red) is shown turning to face Barry I while strapped in to the Batwing just before the final battle, only for the mask to distort comedically as he turns his head.
  • Supergirl's design has not been well-received for how it replaced the short skirt with leggings only to make the leggings look ridiculously tight around the crotch with the same alien markings that Henry Cavill's Superman costume has, causing it to draw more attention. People have commented that it just looks uncomfortable and even the people who applaud the decision to ditch the Gendered Outfit aspect of her design decry how weirdly revealing it still looks despite covering her from neck to toe.
  • Both Alternate Barry and Dark Flash have also been met with this. The improvised costume used by the former, essentially a reused Batman suit, is accused of playing into the complaint that DCEU Barry is too reliant on Batman despite the aforementioned issues with the Keaton Batman suit, resulting in this Barry having a really awkward looking neck and cowl. Dark Flash meanwhile is given an overly grimdark design that has been unfavourably compared to the Michael Bay era Transformers looks or the similar Savitar suit used in The Flash (2014) which, considering both were essentially the same character, an insane alternate Barry Allen, is weirdly fitting.
  • Ben Affleck's Batman suit for the film hasn't been well received either. Especially it lacking texture unlike the Michael Wilkinson suits from previous DCEU movies, the odd "six-pack rings"-like decoration, the bat symbol on the chest looking plastic-ish and the CGI cape sticking out like a sore thumb on Bruce's shoulders during a chase scene.

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